


Diagnostic Criteria

by ununpentium



Series: Not Well [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Description of past drug use, Description of past prostitution, M/M, Mental Illness, Self Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-07
Updated: 2011-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-23 12:45:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ununpentium/pseuds/ununpentium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes has Borderline Personality Disorder.</p><p>A walk through of the diagnostic criteria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I love you, I hate you, I can't live without you.

**Author's Note:**

> Please see end of work for notes.

(1) a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterised by alternating between extremes of over idealisation and devaluation. ( **I love you, I hate you, I can’t live without you.** )

I was lying upside down on the sofa. The blood had rushed to my head and I could feel it pounding in my ears. I was observing everything from my upside down position when John walked in to the living room. I heard the rustling of plastic bags. Shopping, then. I hadn’t been aware of him leaving, but he must have done in order to go to Tesco. I continued cataloguing the contents of the living room, remaining upside down.

“Sherlock? You going to help me put away the shopping?”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s. Yeah, fantastic.” John picked up the bags of shopping and muttered as he walked into the kitchen, dropped the bags onto the table and loudly started opening and closing cupboard doors.

“Do you have to do everything at such a high volume, John? I can’t hear myself think.”

“If you won’t help me put away the shopping then I am entitled to do so at whatever volume I sodding well choose to!” came the angry reply from the kitchen.

Every time a cupboard door was slammed shut I lost my train of thought; the words fell from my head and scattered across the floor. I hated John at that instant. I also thought he was an idiot. I hated that idiot. I contemplated this, still upside down, on the sofa. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore, but my head had started pulsing in waves that were starting to feel very uncomfortable. Stupid John would tell me to sit upright and lecture me on the dangers of letting the blood rush to my head, or something along those lines. He would disapprove anyway. It just made me lie there for longer.

I heard John stomp back into the living room and sit down heavily onto his armchair. I swivelled my head. He was wearing that cream cable knit jumper. It was offensive. I hated that jumper.

“I hate that jumper.”

“Christ, Sherlock, is this how it’s going to be today? I’ve not had anywhere near enough caffeine to be able to deal with this.”

I righted myself.

“Deal with me, John? You _deal_ with me? Here I was thinking you lived here because you wanted to, or you loved me, but not just because you- you _put up with me_.” I spat the words out, stood up and promptly my legs gave way underneath me. That undermined the exit I had planned. I also wasn’t wearing my coat, which was a shame, as it made me look more dramatic if I could make it swirl out behind me.

“That’s why you shouldn’t lie in a position in which gravity makes it extremely hard for the blood to reach your limbs. I’m not going to help you.”

Stupid John. I pressed the heel of my palms into my eyes as my legs prickled.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I awoke later to find John perched on the edge of my bed. Our bed. John slept in my bedroom most nights, now. He only went back to his if we argued, or if one of us had got hurt during a chase and the other didn’t want to risk bumping the injury during the night. John was still wearing his cream cable knit jumper. I extended my arm and touched it. It was incredibly soft and the sensation was soothing. Right now, I very much liked John’s offensive jumper.

“John, I-”

“I don’t just put up with you, Sherlock. I do love you. I’ll take your outright refusal to help me with the shopping because I love spending Sunday mornings in bed with you reading the paper. I’ll take your mood swings because watching late night television curled up on the sofa with you is sometimes the only thing I’ve got to look forward to at the end of a long day at the surgery. I love the way you look at me, like you’re taking me apart and putting me back together again. I love the way you make me feel- safe and wanted. I love _all_ of you, not just the good bits.”

Oh John. Perfect John. Sweet, perfect John with his caring eyes. I grabbed a fistful of his jumper and pulled him down next to me. I wrapped my arms and legs around him. He laughed.

“You’re like an octopus, Sherlock.”

I didn’t want to point out the ways in which that statement was wrong, or even impossible, so I leant over and kissed him instead. I could feel his smile against my lips. I squeezed him tighter and kissed him deeply until my lips tingled and John gasped for air.

“I love you too.” John whispered.

John always knows what I am saying without me having to find the words and verbalise them. I loved John so much that I thought my heart might burst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sub title for this chapter is a line from the song Always by Saliva.


	2. Drugs Busts and Victorian Surgical Equipment

(2) impulsiveness in at least two areas that are potentially self damaging e.g. spending, sex, substance abuse, shoplifting, reckless driving, binge eating (do not include suicidal or self mutilating behaviour covered in [5]). ( **Drugs busts and Victorian surgical equipment.)**

John and I arrived back at 221b after a particularly good post-case meal at Angelo’s. I unlocked the front door and Mrs Hudson appeared anxiously in her doorway.

“Not again, Sherlock?” Her eyes darted upwards. My chest tightened with panic as I took the stairs two at a time and burst through the door. For the second time in as many months the flat was swarming with police officers carrying out a search.

“Lestrade? Show yourself!” I called out, spinning around to get a three hundred and sixty degree view of the flat. John appeared behind me, slightly out of breath from running after me up the stairs.

“Christ. Sherlock, why are they doing this again?”

I pivoted to face John. Déjà vu.

“I don’t know! The Met must get bored. Lestrade must enjoy wasting police time and resources.” I threw my hands up in the air. “Lestrade where are you?”

“You’re not using any of your usual hiding places, Sherlock. Getting inventive are we?” Lestrade asked as he walked out of my bedroom, removing his latex gloves. He had been looking under the loose floorboard under my bed; his knees were slightly covered in dust and he had a small splinter of wood on his right shoe.

“I’m not using at all. I told you last time, I am clean!” Why would nobody believe me?

“Hm, do we believe the sociopath?” Fucking Anderson, head poking out from the kitchen, volunteering again to upturn the contents of my flat and offer unwanted opinions.

“Why are you even here again Lestrade? Where’s your warrant?” I skipped insulting Anderson and went straight to ignoring him. John looked at me approvingly. Well, I’m sure the approval was hidden underneath his exasperation. Or was it anger? Sometimes it was hard to tell with John.

“Oh, I’ve got a warrant. Issued this morning by Judge Horton.” Lestrade waved it triumphantly in my face. I snatched it out of his hands and read it for myself; eyes darting across the page.

“Come on, you know Horton’s got it in for me! She’d sign anything that would allow the police to search this flat and you know it.” My eyes narrowed and I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. Anderson had got dangerously close to the cupboard with the false bottom and I couldn’t entirely rely on his incompetence to miss what was hidden underneath.

Lestrade sighed and plucked the warrant back from my hands. “Come on lads, we’ve been here long enough. Time to clear out.”

Donovan climbed down the stairs clutching John’s photo album. “Oi, John, I thought I told you to stay away from the freak? Seems like you’ve been getting a bit too close to him. You might want to burn the photographic evidence.” She dropped the album onto John’s chair as she breezed past. John snatched it up and clasped it close to his chest. My veins were rapidly turning to ice. That photo album was private. I felt violated on John’s behalf that Donovan had seen the photos of us taken during one Christmas we spent with John’s family. It was our first Christmas as a couple and the photos were very important to John.

“You’d know all about burning photographic evidence, wouldn’t you Donovan?” I sneered. “Those photographs that Anderson took of you didn’t all get destroyed though, did they? Half the Met’s seen them already.” Donovan’s eyes widened as she whirled around to stare at Anderson, who in turn was staring at his feet.

“Just get out! Get out!” I shouted.

After the drugs team had left, John did what he always did when he wasn’t quite sure what to do. He made a cup of tea; meanwhile I was pacing around the kitchen, running my hands through my hair. John sat down at the table and drank his tea in silence. After he had drained his cup, he looked up at me with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Don’t lie to me Sherlock. Are there any drugs in this flat?”

I didn’t want John to leave. If I lied and he found out, he’d walk out and never come back. If I told the truth that there was cocaine stashed in this very kitchen, he might walk out and never come back. Was it more likely that he would work out that I had lied and leave than he would leave immediately if I told him the truth? I couldn’t lie to him, though. The thought of it made me feel sick.

“Yes. Cocaine.” John’s eyes were piercing mine. I could not look away.

“I’m going out, Sherlock. I need some air. When I get back, I want the drugs gone. For good. Or I pack my things and leave. I mean it Sherlock. Either the drugs go, or I do.”

I stood rooted to the spot as I watched John shrug on his jacket and march down the stairs. The front door banged and I ran to the window, watching him walk away. My chest tightened.

I flung myself onto the sofa. I did not want to throw the cocaine away, but I did not want John to leave. What did I want more? Cocaine or John? I did not use cocaine regularly; in fact I had only used it once since John had moved in a year ago. I was technically not lying when I said I was clean. But there were times when nothing helped like cocaine did. Nothing ever matched that first hit though; everything else was just a whisper. I spent years chasing my first high and I could never get it back. But John was a constant. His touches always made me feel the same way, I could rely on that. If John left, my life would feel empty once again. I looked around the living room. There was evidence of John everywhere. One of his jumpers was folded over the back of his chair, his mug was still on the kitchen table and his medical journals were in a pile on the floor next to the sofa. I closed my eyes and imagined Baker Street with all of John’s possessions gone. With John himself gone. The thought made me feel hollow and empty. That decided it, then. I would throw the cocaine away.

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“Sherlock, this must be the tenth parcel for you that’s been delivered this week! What on earth are you buying?”

I walked over to the kitchen table and inspected the parcel that John had placed there. Amazon. Oh, dull. It would be the book I ordered last week about investigative interviewing. I was interested in it at the time, but waiting for the book had been too boring and I was now absorbed in another subject. I chucked it into the bin, unopened.

“Sherlock? You haven’t even opened it! Why are you throwing it away?” John reached into the bin, extracted the parcel and opened up the cardboard. He took out the book and turned it over in his hands.

“Investigative Interviewing by Eric Shepherd. Christ, this cost thirty quid and you threw it away, unopened? The money could have been spent on something we actually needed!”

I had desperately wanted the book at the time. I kept revisiting the page on Amazon, reading the reviews over and over. It was worth the money, I told myself. It would be a highly useful book and I could use the techniques when speaking to clients. God knows the Met don’t have a clue. I had sat at my laptop, tapping my fingers on the desk. I had already memorised my credit card details. I memorised the card details of all six of my credit cards, plus John’s debit card. He didn’t trust himself with a credit card; he said he didn’t want the temptation of being able to spend money he did not actually have. I also had Mycroft’s memorised too, but he knew that and let me use it anyway. It was no fun when he let me so I rarely bothered, except to order things I knew would make him blush. As soon as I hit the confirm order button, I felt a buzz run through me. Ten minutes later I had forgotten about the book and had found a set of Victorian surgical tools on another website, for over two hundred pounds. My skin itched. I needed this. Think of the experiments I could perform using these instruments! Yes, it was perfect. I ordered them. I forgot about them until they arrived yesterday, and they are still unopened, lying on my bed. John doesn’t know about that purchase. I feel if he is this annoyed over a £30 text book, he will be considerably angrier over a £200 set of Victorian surgical instruments. I couldn’t explain to him why I needed to buy these things. It would sound crazy if I said it out loud. _Oh, but John, when I find something I must have I feel wrong until I buy it? My life feels like it isn’t complete until I purchase the thing that is perfect for me in every way? I feel a buzz every time I spend money?_ No.

“I apologise, John. It won’t happen again.” I’ll get my things delivered to Mycroft’s instead. He doesn’t ask questions anymore and just looks at me disapprovingly instead. I can take Mycroft’s disapproval; I’ve had it my whole life.


	3. Panic at the cinema

(3) affective instability, marked shifts from baseline mood to depression, irritability or anxiety, usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days. ( **panic at the cinema.** )

I was standing next to John in the foyer of the cinema. He wanted us to see a re-showing of The Sixth Sense. If I’ve seen it before, I’ve deleted it. But I wasn’t thinking about the film, we could be in the queue to watch a film about paint drying for all I cared, it was the actual cinema I did not like. People tended to want to sit in the middle of a row, in the centre of the theatre. Something about getting a good view of the screen, which was ridiculous as you were guaranteed a perfectly fine view from just about anywhere in the cinema, it was not like the theatre where the view of the stage could be obstructed. Sitting in the middle of a row meant that you had about fifteen people either side of you effectively trapping you in, there was never enough leg room for anyone taller than five foot five and you were expected to sit in the dark staring at an oversized screen with surround sound blaring at an incredibly high volume. It was an assault on the senses, and people partook in this for enjoyment? Suffice to say, it was not one of my favourite activities. I would rather spend the afternoon in the company of Anderson before going to the cinema, but John was excited about this and I wanted to make him happy.

John was pointing excitedly at a film poster in the foyer of the cinema. Paranormal Activity 3, it read. It looked dull. I wondered if it would be ironic if I had a panic attack during a horror film, but not due to the content of the film but due to the environment I was in. I don’t really want to find out.

“Alright, we’ve got ten minutes until the film starts. You want to find our seats?” I never understood why people wanted to race into the screen the second the doors opened, because then you would have to sit and wait until everybody else was seated, and then sit through both adverts and trailers before the film itself, which added at least thirty minutes to the length of time required to be seated for the film. It also gave me ten minutes in which to panic.

“You go ahead, John. I just want to finish looking at these posters. I’ve already worked out plot from four so far.” I waved my hands in his direction, dismissing him. He doesn’t like it when I do that. I should stop.

“I can’t take you anywhere! Look, here’s your ticket, screen six okay? See you in a bit.”

I watched as John walked away, found screen six and the attendant took his ticket and ripped it in half, handing him back one of the halves. He disappeared through the double doors and I exhaled. Ten minutes until I would be trapped inside a darkened room with a couple of hundred people for two hours. I started pacing around the foyer. Adrenaline was coursing through my veins which felt very uncomfortable when not in the context of a dangerous or exciting situation. Fight or flight. I did not need to do either. I shook my arms, not caring if I appeared to be behaving oddly. My breathing was starting to become quick and shallow and I knew I needed to get it under control before I started to hyperventilate. I sat down quickly on one of the chairs provided (again, why do people want to sit down to wait for the screen to open, where they will just be required to sit down again to wait for the film to start and then remain seated throughout?) and placed one hand over my diaphragm. I breathed in slowly through my nose, making my hand rise rather than breathing into my chest. Then I exhaled, making sure it was for longer than the time I took inhaling, and watched my hand fall back. I repeated this until I could breathe properly and deeply again. It was time to go in.

I rose to my feet somewhat unsteadily and walked along the corridor to the entrance to screen six. I thrust my ticket and the attendant who ripped it in half without even glancing at it and handed me back one of the halves. I took a deep breath and walked in to the screen, locating John after having memorised the row and seat number earlier. Row E seat 19. Middle, centre. Predictably dull. I stood at the end of the row and a few people moaned as they stood up to let me pass. There was still not enough room for me to pass by comfortably and I am sure I knocked over at least one drink on the way. I sank down in my seat next to John’s. I could make out his grin in the dim light and his hand found mine and squeezed. My heart was pounding in my chest and my stomach muscles had tensed up. The more I tried not to think of the panic, the more I was forced to think about it. I tried shutting my eyes, but that amplified the sound and the light was still flickering through my eyelids. It made everything worse. I gripped John’s hand back and forced myself to list all of the bones in the hand and when I had finished I listed the muscles in the arm. I managed to catch snatches of the film here and there when the panic had eased enough for me to try to watch it. I could piece together enough of the dialogue to understand what was going on, and I had worked out the plot twist from the beginning, so it would be easy enough to suggest to John afterwards that I had enjoyed it. As soon as the lights came up, after what felt like an eternity, I bolted from my chair, pushed past the people in my row and ran out of the cinema. As soon as I found myself outside in the bright sunshine I took a deep breath and raised my face towards the sky. The anxiety was fading already. I was desperate for a cigarette, but I knew from experience that the nicotine this close to an anxiety attack would only bring back the feelings of panic.

I heard John come up behind me, and he wrapped his arms around my waist.

“That’s one of my favourite films! Did you enjoy it? You rushed out at the end.”

I twisted around to face him.

“Yes, I had an urgent text to send to Lestrade. I thought of something to do with the case during the film and it couldn’t wait much longer.”

“You liked the film though?” John looked anxious. I arranged my face into a smile.

“Of course. Fantastic twist at the end.”

“You saw it coming from the start, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Bugger.” John giggled and so did I, feeling slightly lightheaded. He grabbed my hand as we walked towards the taxi rank. It had been worth the panic, I concluded, to see John looking so happy and relaxed.


	4. Anderson had it coming (I sold my body to free my mind)

(4) inappropriate, intense anger or lack of control of anger e.g. frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights. ( **Anderson had it coming/I sold my body to free my mind**.)

It was Friday night and John had persuaded me to join him and Lestrade in the local pub. I was sitting in one of the booths that ran along the back wall nursing a pint, still wrapped up inside my coat. I might have been scowling. John and Lestrade sat facing each other across the table, engrossed in a boring discussion I could not even be bothered to eavesdrop on. I was sure that John would not even notice if I slipped away. I was contemplating the optimal moment to make my move (I might have been able to slither down the leather seat, crawl _underneath_ the table to the other side and simply walk out of the door) when Anderson and Donovan appeared. Their reactions upon seeing me led me to believe they had not been informed of my presence prior to agreeing to attend, and I too would not have agreed to accompany John had I known they had been invited. I turned my scowl towards John. This was a set up. I started to stand up when John pressed firmly on my shoulder.

“Sherlock. Stay. Please.”

“Yeah Sherlock. Sit. Stay. Like a dog, eh!” Donovan. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten. I felt John’s hand grab one of my fists under the table and stroke it soothingly. I opened my eyes and Donovan and Anderson had sat down, Anderson on my left next to Lestrade and Donovan on the right next to John.

“Another round? Same again?” Lestrade stood up, patting his jacket pockets searching for his wallet. He wouldn’t find it, I had pickpocketed him earlier in a fit of boredom. Though I expect I had become somewhat predictable, for Lestrade instantly glared at me and John burst out laughing, reached into my inside coat pocket, extracted Lestrade’s wallet and flung it at him.

“I hope my warrant card is still in here Sherlock, or mysteriously makes its way back onto my person tonight, or you’ll be barred from crime scenes for the next month.”

I hadn’t touched his warrant card this time. I still had about six hidden around the flat, anyway. I was ten pounds richer, though.

“How’s the freak then?”

“Fine, thank you, Sally.” Donovan was smirking. I could be civil just for one night, for John. I could.

Three rounds later and Anderson was considerably louder and his brain to mouth filter seemed to have completely failed. He was talking loudly, well slurring loudly, about his apparent love for musicals. Donovan looked embarrassed and Lestrade was filming the whole thing on his mobile. John was grinning and I just wanted to go back to the flat and play my violin until I stopped feeling like I wanted to hit everybody.

“John, I have some business to attend to. I’ll meet you back at Baker Street later.” I murmured. John nodded at me and mouthed _thanks_ as I stood up and exited the booth. As I passed Anderson he turned his attention on me.

“Business to attend to? Oh I get it, its code, right? You’ve got some business in the alley behind the pub. How much do you charge now then to let the drunks touch you-” Before Anderson could finish I reached across the table, punched him across his face and grabbed his shirt collar, lifting him up roughly.

“You might want to think very carefully before finishing that train of thought, Anderson. But that was your problem, wasn’t it? You never think.” I let him go and he fell back against the wall of the booth. Donovan and Lestrade had both stood up and were shouting, but my head was so full of white noise I could not make out what they were saying. I turned on my heels and stalked out of the pub. I got as far as the next street before stopping to lean against the wall, panting heavily. A few seconds later I heard John’s footsteps, he had run out of the pub after me.

“Sherlock? What the hell was that about?” John was looking at me with a mixture of worry and anger on his face. “What did Anderson mean?”

I could feel my anger bubbling up again.

“Leave it, John. Just leave it.” I pushed away from the wall and continued walking in the direction of Baker Street. I was taking long strides and John hurried to keep up.

“No, Sherlock. Slow down a minute!”

I whirled around to face him.

“This doesn’t concern you; stop sticking your nose in to everything!”

John looked hurt. I felt angrier, but this time at myself. I growled in frustration.

“Anderson has to ruin everything! What we have John,” I gestured to us, “this is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I didn’t want to tell you, I didn’t want you to think badly of me and leave.”

“Didn’t want to tell me what?” John looked concerned now. I couldn’t handle his concerned face. I screwed my eyes shut.

“About six years ago. You knew about the cocaine. You didn’t know how I funded it. After I sold everything I owned for drugs, I used the only thing I had left. My body.”  I was shaking now. This was it. This was the thing that pushed John away from me forever. “John it was six years ago, I’m clean though, I’ve been tested and I’ve never done it since and-” I felt John’s hand cover mine. I opened my eyes.

“Sherlock, shh. It’s okay. It’s in the past. That isn’t who you are anymore. I would have preferred it if you had told me sooner, but I’m not going anywhere. You’re a different person now.”

I let out the breath I had been holding.

“Please, John. I need to go home before I decide to go back to the pub and finish what I started.”

John pressed a kiss to my hand before leading me back to Baker Street.

“Next time, don’t punch Anderson. If you keep hitting him then Lestrade really will ban you from crime scenes.”

“It’d be worth it though,” I muttered under my breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I sold my body to free my mind" is a line from the song Numb by Breed77


	5. Black Shirts

(5) recurrent suicidal threats, gestures, or behaviour, or self mutilating behaviour. ( **Black shirts.** )

It was thirty degrees Celsius in central London. I was at a crime scene with John and I was boiling. John was wearing a short sleeved light blue shirt, whereas I was wearing a long sleeved shirt. A black shirt. Why a black shirt, I hear you ask? Because blood does not show up on a black shirt. If, say, a wound on your forearm were to reopen as you stretched your arm and started to bleed, nobody would notice. John kept looking at my shirt every now and again. I could see he was puzzled. Only last week I was walking around the flat in just my pyjama bottoms complaining about the heat, and now he obviously cannot understand why I have overdressed for work. The crucial difference between last Tuesday, and today, ladies and gentlemen, is that today I have a cut on my left forearm that was not present last Tuesday. It was made at approximately 3.36am this morning. I did it myself.

You might wonder why I would do such a thing. You might be thinking that deliberate self harm is something that only teenage girls do. You’d be wrong. You might wonder how John hasn’t noticed before, when we share a bed. Well, I’ve become very good at hiding it over the years. I don’t usually cut myself. I prefer to cause harm to myself indirectly. I would allow myself to fall awkwardly after jumping from a reasonable height chasing after a suspect, nothing that would impair my ability to continue running after him, but enough for me to feel the pain as I ran. Or I might let the assailant get in a few lucky punches. On occasion I have stepped out in front of slow moving cars; I know how to roll over the bonnet to minimise the impact, and when incorporating that into an impressive chase then it looks quite harmless. It’s only later that I would feel the pain in my ribs as I breathed. All of these pains and bruises got explained away to John as the downside of my work. He would frown and then offer to clean my wounds or fetch me painkillers. I decline when my wounds are self inflicted. I feel as if I should suffer the consequences for as long as possible.

At 3.36am I found myself sitting on the sofa with my old cigar box in my hands. I was turning it over, feeling the weight of it. It was where I used to keep my cocaine and sterilised needles. After I threw the drugs away after choosing John, all that remained was the straight edged razor I kept with the cocaine, for the odd occasion I was snorting it instead of injecting and wanted to chop it up into a finer powder and arrange it into lines.

John was sleeping in my bed. I had crept out of the room being careful not to wake him. I could not sleep and there was no real reason for it, as I was in between cases and so was not being kept awake by the data sorting itself out in my mind. But something was different, something had shifted. It was as if I could now see the shadows where there were none before. Darkness and light. John was the light and I was pure darkness. I wondered if I was black inside. If I cut myself would I bleed out the blackness? I needed to see. I wanted to dissect myself, take me apart bit by bit and examine the pieces to see where the darkness came from; where it was hiding. I took the blade out from the cigar box and held it in my right hand. I inhaled, pressed the blade down onto my arm and dragged.  Exhale. My skin opened up and the blood spilled out. It was red. I wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or not. A laugh might have bubbled up and spilled out of my mouth. I wasn’t sure if I was checking to make sure I was still alive or if I was punishing myself for something. I stared at the wound for a long time, never mopping up any of the blood. I let it congeal in the tracks it had made as it ran down my arm. An hour or so later, I put the blade back inside the box and pushed it back underneath the sofa. I walked up to the bathroom to wash the dried blood from my arm, dug out an old long sleeved pyjama shirt from the airing cupboard and slinked back downstairs to my bedroom where John was still sleeping. I carefully climbed in to bed beside him. When he woke up in the morning he hadn’t even noticed that my short sleeved blue t shirt had been replaced by a black long sleeved top mysteriously during the night.

When we got home from the crime scene, John asked why I hadn’t rolled my sleeves up when we were working outside in the heat. I said what I always say when I can’t, or won’t explain. _Experiment_. John never brought it up again.


	6. I don't know who I am

(6) marked and persistent identity disturbance manifested by uncertainty about at least two of the following: self image, sexual orientation, long term goals or career choice, type of friends desired, preferred values. ( **I don’t know who I am.** )

My mobile buzzed in my jacket pocket. I ignored it. I was lying on the sofa again, although not upside down this time. I didn’t want a repeat of the legs giving way underneath me incident like before. I counted down from ten and when I reached zero, my mobile started buzzing again. Predictable. I knew without looking at the screen that it would be Lestrade calling from the scene of the latest body that had been found, in connection with the other four bodies that had been found across London, all missing their left feet.

“Aren’t you going to answer your phone? Sounds important, that’s the third time it’s gone off in a row.” John peered at me over the top of his newspaper. Concerned face again. I shut my eyes.

“No.”

Truth be told, I wanted to answer my mobile. This case was like Christmas and all the birthdays I’ve ever had rolled into one. My right hand itched. I stuck it in between my knees.

“Why? This isn’t some sort of experiment in how long your buzzing phones takes to annoy your boyfriend is it? Cos the answer’s not very long, Sherlock.”

Boyfriend. I wonder if John used that word intentionally, or if it just slipped out. He had never used that word to describe me before. I liked it. Boyfriend. I rolled the word around in my head. Yes, it was good. John cleared his throat and I realised I hadn’t answered him.

“No experiment. I just decided that I should take a break from being a Consulting Detective. I thought I might look into getting some lab work at Bart’s.” I opened one eye, trying to gauge John’s reaction.

“Err. Okay. Hang on. I’m sorry?”

I shut my eye again. Still his concerned face, though he had made his bemused smile.

“Sherlock, you’re not the type for regular nine to five work. You’ve never been interested in a normal job; you invented your own for God’s sake! You’d go mad within a day working in the lab at Bart’s. What’s made you decide all this?”

I steepled my fingers under my chin and exhaled.

“I’m not going to repeat this, so listen carefully. I think Mycroft is right. I should stop all of this “playing detective” nonsense and do something normal.”

John burst out laughing. I snapped open my eyes.

“I’m sorry! Sorry. It’s just first you say you’re going to get a normal job and now you’re agreeing with Mycroft! I would ask what drugs you’re on, but that’s not funny and I’m actually getting worried.”

“If it’s not funny, why are you laughing?” I tilted my head.

“I think it was the shock of what you just said, to be honest.”

John rubbed his hands over his face and sighed.

“What’s brought all this on, Sherlock?”

I didn’t really know how to answer. It was something that had been eating away at me for months, even before Mike introduced me to John. I had been doubting my ability to work as a Consulting Detective and was very aware of how most of the Met viewed my work- as a cheap parlour trick and nothing more. They resented my involvement and many refused to work with me completely. I had started second guessing myself; it was taking me longer to make deductions and every time I looked in the mirror I recognised the man staring back less and less.

“You were the first person that didn’t tell me to piss off, John. We were in the taxi on the way to Lauriston Gardens, I told you how I knew about you being invalided home from Afghanistan and you told me it was amazing. You kept saying it that night.”

John smiled at the memory.

“But do you remember what Sebastian said when I introduced you in the bank? He said that at university I “put the wind up everybody”, that I was a freak and they all hated me.” My voice cracked. John moved to sit next to me on the sofa and took my hand between his, stroking it encouragingly. “I’ve had that reaction my whole life. I can’t help observing things, but I don’t think I can take that anymore. It’s not even that I’m any good at it! Not really. If I felt I really was making a difference with my work then it wouldn’t bother me what people thought, but I know that I just get lucky most of the time and wing it the rest.”

John shook his head vehemently.

“No, Sherlock. You’re wrong. You really think you either get lucky with your deductions, or just wing it?”

I nodded silently.

“Oh, love. You’re the most intelligent person I know. You have such a beautiful brain and I can assure you what you do is more than simply getting lucky. I watch you work, at crime scenes. I stand back and watch. You’re like nothing I’ve ever seen. I can almost see the gears whirring in your head, making connections and observations that no-one else would, all of it at the speed of light.”

John was gripping my hands now, talking passionately and punctuating every few words with a sharp nod of his head.

“You do make a difference, Sherlock, such a difference. Without you then so many families across London, hell, across the country, wouldn’t have closure for the horrible things that had happened to members of their family. You’ve saved lives, too. You can’t just write that off.”

My breathing stuttered and I buried my face into John’s neck. I desperately wanted to believe what John had said, but there was still something in the back of my head that was telling me he was lying and that I was no good.

John stroked my hair and whispered into my ear. “Trust me Sherlock. I wouldn’t lie to you. And you think Lestrade would keep phoning you if he thought he could manage without you?” John guided me back to lie down on the sofa and wrapped himself around me. Even though he was smaller than me, I still felt protected. My eyes had lowered shut and John was still stroking my hair. I fell asleep to John’s litany of “I love you”, whispered over and over.


	7. Explosions in the kitchen

(7) chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom. ( **Explosions in the kitchen.** )

John would be back from work in precisely one hour and forty nine minutes. He was doing locum work at a different GP surgery and he was not enjoying it.

“Four cases of ‘man flu’ in a row with a sprinkling of norovirus in the afternoon, finished off with an ingrowing toenail. Not the best day I’ve had, Sherlock.”

That had been yesterday. John settled himself in front of the television with a curry and a beer as I sat contemplating life, the universe and everything from my chair. John said I was sulking. I was definitely not sulking, I was _thinking_. Lestrade had barred me from crime scenes for a month. I did not hit Anderson again. I should have hit Anderson, I had a long list of reasons why that course of action would be justified, but this time I was banned for _withholding evidence_. There was not even a fake drugs bust. Lestrade played dirty, skipped that step, and banned me. For a month! Suffice to say I was bored. I was contemplating my boredom. I was _not_ sulking. In the end I settled on measuring the effects of airborne corn kernels on concentration, trying to decide if the velocity of the kernels made any significant difference to the ability of the subject to concentrate. Or, basically, I was throwing popcorn at John’s head to see how long it would take him to get irritated. Six minutes and four seconds. That man is stubborn and does not give in easily. Military training. He retaliated by grabbing me, frogmarching me into my bedroom, handcuffing me to my bed, confiscating my blackberry and returning to the living room. I let him, obviously. Measuring the effects of, er, restraints and…. Yeah.

John will return from work in one hour and forty six minutes. I was laying on the sofa in my blue robe with an old t shirt of John’s and my pyjama bottoms on underneath. I couldn’t find John’s gun. This irritated me. The smiley face I had sprayed onto the wall two months ago was still there, mocking me, and I wanted to put some more bullets into it. The gun was not in the flat, that much was obvious. John would never take it to work with him, so he must have left it with someone he trusted. I was too bored to try working it out. I curled up on the sofa and pressed my hands into my eyes.

I was dying, I concluded. I could feel my brain rotting and crumbling inside my skull and by the time John came home there would be a skeleton lying on the sofa wearing my blue robe. That mental image was ridiculous and I huffed out a laugh. There was nothing for it; I had to find The Box. The Box was John’s idea; it was full of my half-finished experiments and ideas that he considered too dangerous for me to attempt alone.

“I’m not coming home again to find you lying on the floor with your hair singed and a honking great burn on your cheek, Sherlock! If you insist on playing the mad scientist, then you do it when I’m home and can try to make sure you don’t kill yourself.”

He had put The Box at the bottom of his wardrobe and written on it in thick, black marker “DO NOT open when John is out” and he had underlined it four times. I grabbed it and marched downstairs and into the kitchen. There was one particular experiment that I was desperate to finish; it involved a series of small, controlled explosions. Ideally, I should have headed down to Bart’s in order to carry it out but I concluded that travelling through central London with any amount of home-made explosives was a bit not good and the police would no doubt have an arrest now, ask questions later policy. I didn’t fancy sitting in a police cell waiting for John to bail me out.

One hour and thirty minutes later I was quietly pleased at myself for not so much as singing a single hair on my entire person when a bird flew into the window with an almighty thud. This startled me and I turned around quickly, accidentally jolting the kitchen table. The contents of my experiment crashed to the kitchen floor and exploded on impact. The last thought that ran through my head was the same thing the cab driver from the case John called _A Study in Pink_ had told me, “You’d do anything, anything at all, to stop being bored.” The first time around I was prepared to take what might have been poison in order to satisfy my curiosity and keep the boredom at bay, and now I was rapidly falling unconscious after a small explosion in the kitchen had caused me to fly backwards and hit my head against the coffee table in the lounge.

I awoke to find John standing over me asking me what day it was and who the Prime Minister was. I told him it was Wednesday and the Prime Minister was Gordon Brown. That was obviously not right, for John frowned and pulled his mobile out of his pocket, dialling for an ambulance. I didn’t think I was concussed, I just never had much of an interest in politics (that was Mycroft’s area) and the days all bled into one when I had no cases on. I tried to tell John this.

“John, the days bleed and Mycroft is having dinner with the president, wait, no. John I didn’t want you to come home to my skeleton wearing my blue robe!” Well, the basic idea of what I was trying to get across was there but my brain was not entirely co-operating. Maybe I was slightly concussed.

“When you are better and no longer have concussion, I am going to shout at you for being so stupid and setting fire to the kitchen, which by the way you are going to pay to repair. I don’t care that it was a small fire and that I put it out with the fire extinguisher, the fact still remains you set fire to the kitchen and this was something we talked about!” John was laughing and crying at the same time. That confused me and it hurt my head too much to work out why he was doing that.

“Can I have a shock blanket?” I asked instead. John started laughing hysterically. I decided he needed it more than me, and when the paramedics arrived I would tell them so.


	8. Don't leave me don't leave me don't leave me

(8) frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (do not include suicidal or self mutilating behaviour covered in [5]) ( **Don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me.** )

John left me. Technically he went to a medical conference, but he left me all the same. It was three nights and four days that he left me, alone, in Baker Street. During that time I texted him 472 times. I ran out of actual things to text him about after four hours (there’s only so many reminders I can send him to bring me home chocolate hob nobs) so I resorted to texting anything that happened to catch my attention.

 _John, there is a spider crawling across the floor. SH_

 _Why do birds have to be so noisy? SH_

 _Why is your bed so uncomfortable? SH_

 _I just made myself a cup of tea. SH_

He texted me back, only the once. It said _Sherlock, I’m actually turning my phone off now. I am busy, I’ve got seminars all day and I can’t be texting you every three seconds. If someone dies or you blow the place up then Lestrade has the number of the hotel. JW_

I threw my phone across the living room and into the fireplace, where it shattered and I immediately regretted that course of action. Thankfully I had another mobile phone secreted away in my bedroom, people recognised my number with more frequency these days, and so I started using that instead. I continued to text John, even though his phone was off, because it still felt like a connection to him, however tenuous. It was the first time that John had spent the night away from me since the one occasion three months ago when he slept on Sarah’s sofa. That did not end well for me; there was an explosion across the street. Logically I knew that John’s absence had not caused the explosion, that was Morairty’s handiwork, but an irrational part of my brain was screaming at me, telling me that because John was not here then bad things were bound to happen.

I was afraid John would forget about me and never come home.

When he did arrive home four days later, tired and in search of a cup of tea, I couldn’t let him out of my sight. I hovered close by him, not quite touching him, just watching.

“Sherlock?” John paused, hand halfway to the kettle, “uh, are you okay? I’m just making a cuppa. Not very interesting.”

Wrong. It was infinitely interesting. Everything John was doing I wanted to catalogue, file away, never to forget. He might leave me tomorrow and I could not waste another second. I wanted to know exactly how he liked to make his tea, how his skin tasted first thing in the morning, what he sounded like when he had a nightmare; things that I had not yet had a chance to properly observe.

“You missed me then?” he said half jokingly, a smile on his lips, flicking on the kettle. I still had not said a word to him since he arrived back home. I did not want to waste words anymore; what if they were limited, too? What if he left and the last thing I said to him was “don’t be an idiot, John, of course the killer didn’t break in through the window- look at the broken glass, it’s on the _outside_.”

John frowned, his eyes questioning and his smile faded away.

“You’re not yourself. Are you ill? What’s wrong?” he reached towards my forehead, trying to take my temperature. I turned away before he could touch me, stalked across the lounge and flopped on to the sofa. I screwed my eyes shut.

“Sherlock, you can’t just will yourself out of this conversation. Something is obviously wrong and you are going to tell me what it is!” John had forgotten that the kettle had just boiled. The teabag was still sitting untouched in the teapot. This made me feel like I had an itch I couldn’t scratch. If John would just finish making his tea then things would be okay.

“Fine. You don’t want to talk.” I heard John sigh and start to walk back towards the kitchen, then he paused, turned around and climbed onto the sofa behind me, something he did to show me that I was safe with him.

“You still don’t have to talk, but at least now you can feel that I am here for you and ready to listen, okay?” He pressed his head against the back of my neck and nuzzled softly. My heart ached. John knew, intuitively, what I needed, and he acted. He never pressured me into speaking if I couldn’t, and all of this physically hurt because I knew John would leave and I would be left with nothing. No more touches, no more kisses, no lazy Sunday mornings in bed. My heart, my fucking _heart_ would be ripped out.

I twisted around suddenly so that we were lying face to face on the sofa. It felt as if my heart was already being ripped out of me and I was dying, oh god I was dying.

“Help me, John, help me help me help me.”

“Always, you know that Sherlock, I will always help you but you have to tell me what’s wrong.”

“It hurts,” I whispered.

“What does?” John whispered back, stroking my hair back from my face.

“You. My heart. You’ll leave me and it hurts and I couldn’t survive that and what’s the point in all of this if it’s just going to end and, the _pain_ , John what will make you stay, I’ll do _anything_ -“

“Shhh,” John placed one finger over my lips and wrapped his legs over mine, anchoring me. “I’m not going to leave you, Sherlock. What will it take to make you believe that?”

“Why would you want to stay? What do you see in me? How can you want to be with me, love me, when I can’t stand myself? I have to live with me all the time and I hate it, I can’t expect you to do it too.”

I shut my eyes again. It hurt to look at John’s kind face, I was afraid to see pity in his eyes. I didn’t want him to stay out of a sense of obligation.

“God, Sherlock, why would I not want to stay? I love you. That’s something I need to tell you more, I know, and I wish I could get inside your head and make you understand just how much I love you. You saved me, when I got back from Afghanistan I thought there was nothing left, then you came along with your amazing deductions and chases across London right out of a crime thriller, and once again I had a reason to live.” John exhaled and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “And then I realised I was falling in love with you, this gorgeous, mad, _impossible_ man and I felt excited because I knew that whatever happened, I’d have you. I feel whole with you, Sherlock. I’d never leave you, never _want_ to leave you, couldn’t leave you.”

I couldn’t breathe. John, oh John, _my_ John, is this true?

“I love you,” was all I could manage to say. After all, if it did really end here, they were good words to end on.

**Author's Note:**

> This was based on personal experiences of Borderline Personality Disorder but is in no way autobiographical. It is very much Sherlock in this fic, not me.
> 
> The diagnostic criteria used are from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version three- revised (DSM III-R). This was mainly because at the time of writing this I had no internet connection but I do have a copy of the DSM III-R. Had I had the internet I might have used the up to date criteria, or used the criteria from the ICD-10 for emotionally unstable personality disorder- borderline type.
> 
> I am not a doctor and so the representation of Borderline Personality Disorder in this fic should not be used to attempt to self diagnose. Please also remember that the combination of symptoms present in BPD vary wildly from person to person, and in severity.
> 
> Lastly, whilst I can see elements of BPD in BBC Sherlock, this fic was more of a writing exercise for me and I don't think BBC Sherlock does have a personality disorder.


End file.
